When clinton was in office he used the parks admin to take farm land away from the amish to turn it into a sanctuary , wait a few more years and that same land will go to some one close to the administration.

Thomas Jefferson was a very out spoken critic of the Supreme Court and felt it was a danger to our country. It will be up to we, the people, to change it. Here are just a few of his quotes:

Quote:

This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt.

Quote:

In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow . . . The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

Quote:

To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves

Quote:

The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch

Quote:

The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches

Quote:

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual

Quote:

The law of self-preservation is higher than written law.

Quote:

The judiciary of the

Quote:

United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone

Quote:

On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

With this court ruling that practice now has the approval of the highest court and so will become routine and without redress.

Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative power is given to corporations that represent economic, industrial and professional groups. Unlike pluralism, in which many groups must compete for control of the state, in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process. [...]

Today, corporatism or neo-corporatism is used as a pejorative term in reference to perceived tendencies in politics for legislators and administrations to be influenced or dominated by the interests of business enterprises (limited liability corporations). The influence of other types of groups, such as labor unions, is perceived to be relatively minor. In this view, government decisions are seen as being influenced strongly by which sorts of policies will lead to greater profits for favored companies. In this sense of the word, corporatism is also termed corporatocracy. [...]

Corporatism is also used to describe a condition of corporate-dominated globalization. Points enumerated by users of the term in this sense include the prevalence of very large, multinational corporations that freely move operations around the world in response to corporate, rather than public, needs; the push by the corporate world to introduce legislation and treaties which would restrict the abilities of individual nations to restrict corporate activity; and similar measures to allow corporations to sue nations over "restrictive" policies, such as a nation's environmental regulations that would restrict corporate activities. [...]

The ruling is being spun as a departure or something new or radical, but its well within precedent, based on the history of eminent domain....

".......Use of eminent domain by colonial governments was modest by modern standards, but certain important trends can be detected. First, property was acquired to promote the economic growth of the community. Colonial mill acts, for example, allowed the proprietors of water-powered grist mills, upon the payment of compensation, to erect a dam across a stream and flood neighboring land. Virginia and Maryland lawmakers sought to encourage iron production by extending eminent domain power to the owners of iron works. Second, lawmakers delegated eminent domain to private entrepreneurs—mill and iron works operators—whose activities were seen as benefiting society as a whole..."

The article goes on to discuss eminent domain in the context of the early/mid 19th century railroad construction...

"..."The history of railroading is particularly instructive. State and federal courts in the antebellum era repeatedly sustained acts empowering railroads to appropriate private property. Rejecting arguments that property was being taken for private gain, they reasoned that railroad companies were carrying out the public purpose of improving transportation. The railroad eminent domain cases established two propositions:

(1) that public use was not synonymous with public ownership and...

(2) that legislators were free to decide whether private enterprise might be a better vehicle than governmental agencies to effectuate the public interest. I

In other words, the question of public use turns upon the objects to be accomplished rather than the instrument employed to attain them...."

....For example, a New York court explained in 1831 that the power of eminent domain could be utilized “whenever the public interest requires it.” Beekman v. Saratoga & Schenectady R.R. Co. , 3 Paige’s Ch. 45, 71 (N.Y. Ch. 1831). The court added that it was the province of the legislature to determine whether the benefit to the public warranted taking private property

So its sort of interesting to see this long-standing "economic developement" rationale for eminent domain, extending back to the colonial legislatures, in context of the modern ruling.

So its sort of interesting to see this long-standing "economic developement" rationale for eminent domain, extending back to the colonial legislatures, in context of the modern ruling.

And extending forward to something new:

Quote:

The idea of a world government certainly isn't new, of course. The Roman Empire achieved a world government to a large extent 2,000 years ago. And during the Middle Ages the Christian Church constituted a universal order of sorts, despite the schism between its western -- or Roman -- branch and its eastern -- or Greek -- branch.

In modern times the idea has appealed to several groups of people. In the first place there are the amoral, super-wealthy elements: cosmopolitan and raceless individuals who already wield a great deal of power through their wealth and like to flatter themselves with the thought that they deserve even more power over the lives of the rest of us. In many cases there's more than self-flattery involved: many of these men are involved in giant, multinational business enterprises, and they see more profit for themselves in the conversion of the world into a sort of global plantation, with themselves in the role of owners and overseers, and the rest of us as their serfs.

[...]

More than anything else, however, it is the Jews' control of the news and entertainment media which gives them their immense power. For more than 50 years they have consistently used their media power to advance the schemes of the New World Order gang.

Clearly the Jews see a dominant role for themselves in a world government because of the power they already wield. Beyond this, with their highly leveraged situation -- that is, their need to maintain their control over numerically much larger Gentile populations everywhere, increasing centralization of governmental power is the only strategy which makes sense for them. They have a tiger by the tail, and they dare not let go. Their great fear is that a strong and genuinely patriotic leader may arise in some nation, another Adolf Hitler, and he will succeed in breaking the Jewish control over his people and ending Jewish power in his nation. If that is permitted to happen in any major nation, it may spread quickly to other nations. That is why they pulled out all the stops to destroy Germany during the Second World War. And, if they were not already convinced, the Second World War redoubled their conviction that they must make every nation subordinate to a world government under their control.

What the Jews and the other New World Order schemers have in mind goes far, far beyond the United Nations Organization that they created at the end of the Second World War. The UN has been moderately successful at bullying small countries into line with the threat of so-called "peace keeping" forces, but it has no power over large nations. The Jews want a final end to the possibility of the resurgence of any nationalism -- except their own, of course. They want to eliminate forever the possibility that the people of Russia, the United States, Germany, Britain, or any other country except Israel will act of their own will.

This total elimination of national sovereignty is in accord with the interests of the non-Jewish New World Order schemers as well. The whole idea of patriotism has been in bad odor with the leftist academics and their semi-intellectual hangers on for a long time. Patriotism is an alien concept to them. They are instinctively hostile to patriots. Bill Clinton, who demonstrated against his own country during the Vietnam war, provides an excellent example of this mind-set. And patriotism is contrary to the universalist ideas of the Christian clerics backing the New World Order.

Finally, the international capitalists also are hostile to national sovereignty. They want a truly global plantation, with a global labor pool for them to exploit and a global market for them to milk. National boundaries and any tendencies toward protecting national interests just get in their way and cut into their profits.

So now we can begin to understand some of the things which have been happening to us during the past few decades in terms of these goals of the New World Order schemers. For example, the refusal of the United States government to control our borders. We have millions of illegal aliens in the United States and hundreds of thousands more entering the country every year. Stopping the flow of illegal aliens across our borders and deporting the illegals already here would be a trivially easy thing for the United States government to do.

It would cost far less money than is spent each year in providing various social and medical services to illegal aliens now. Any military or police operations involved could be integrated with training programs and could provide valuable experience for military and police personnel. But the Federal government has consistently refused to take any effective action to halt illegal immigration.

[...]

The truth of the matter is that the New World Order people ultimately aim to create a New World Population of serfs for their global plantation, a homogeneous population of coffee-colored serfs --- a population of docile, predictable, and interchangeable serfs -- and they definitely don't want any large reservoir of White people anywhere who might rebel.

The ruling is being spun as a departure or something new or radical, but its well within precedent, based on the history of eminent domain....

".......Use of eminent domain by colonial governments was modest by modern standards, but certain important trends can be detected. First, property was acquired to promote the economic growth of the community. Colonial mill acts, for example, allowed the proprietors of water-powered grist mills, upon the payment of compensation, to erect a dam across a stream and flood neighboring land. Virginia and Maryland lawmakers sought to encourage iron production by extending eminent domain power to the owners of iron works. Second, lawmakers delegated eminent domain to private entrepreneurs—mill and iron works operators—whose activities were seen as benefiting society as a whole..."

The article goes on to discuss eminent domain in the context of the early/mid 19th century railroad construction...

"..."The history of railroading is particularly instructive. State and federal courts in the antebellum era repeatedly sustained acts empowering railroads to appropriate private property. Rejecting arguments that property was being taken for private gain, they reasoned that railroad companies were carrying out the public purpose of improving transportation. The railroad eminent domain cases established two propositions:

(1) that public use was not synonymous with public ownership and...

(2) that legislators were free to decide whether private enterprise might be a better vehicle than governmental agencies to effectuate the public interest. I

In other words, the question of public use turns upon the objects to be accomplished rather than the instrument employed to attain them...."

....For example, a New York court explained in 1831 that the power of eminent domain could be utilized “whenever the public interest requires it.” Beekman v. Saratoga & Schenectady R.R. Co. , 3 Paige’s Ch. 45, 71 (N.Y. Ch. 1831). The court added that it was the province of the legislature to determine whether the benefit to the public warranted taking private property

So its sort of interesting to see this long-standing "economic developement" rationale for eminent domain, extending back to the colonial legislatures, in context of the modern ruling.

An excellent example of the degradation of our property rights through judicial decree. A little piece here and a little bit there and eventually we will be serfs and the government will be the land barrons.

This was a hot topic on talk radio today. Give it a day or two though and it will spiral down the media memory hole to be replaced by the next topic du jour, perhaps the latest on Paris Hilton or maybe a gaffe made by a politician. Rest assured though, one way or another we'll be distracted. Besides, since there is no recourse, no higher court or authority to legally appeal to and the will of the people is irrelevant, this may as well be an irrevocable Act of God that we're totally powerless to counter so there's no point in dwelling on it, right?

In my line of work I see the power of eminent domain being used regularly and routinely. If a road needs to be widened to accomodate the increased traffic resulting from a privately owned subdivision then the road will be widened even if that means that the pre-existing homeowners will have to look both ways for oncoming traffic before stepping out from their front door on the way to work in the morning. If the most convenient and cost effective route for a water or sewer line to service this private developement happens to go through your back yard, well, that's where it's going to go. The immediate and actual beneficiary of the land acquisition is almost always a private developer who eventually walks away with his profits. The purported beneficiary, the town, county or state winds up with more roads and utilities to service and maintain which requires more tax revenue and so the cycle perpetuates itself. More tax ratables requiring more government services requiring more tax ratables...

This American Myth that a man's home is his castle has little basis in fact. Many of us occupy a plot of land that we spend twenty or thirty years paying for and yet we're still subject to the whims and humor of the Lord of the Manor, even more so now with this latest ruling. We're already little more than economic serfs. Assuming that you've managed to pay off your mortgage and that you have fee simple possession and title to your property, try this experiment, refuse to pay your property taxes for a quarter or two and see what happens. You'll find out rather quickly who really owns your property.

To echo some of the sentiments already expressed in this thread, maybe this latest blatant slap in the face by a dictatorial judiciary will be enough to convince some of the fence sitters out there that all is not right in the world and that all this talk of "freedom" is little more than smoke and mirrors.

This was a hot topic on talk radio today. Give it a day or two though and it will spiral down the media memory hole to be replaced by the next topic du jour, perhaps the latest on Paris Hilton or maybe a gaffe made by a politician. Rest assured though, one way or another we'll be distracted. Besides, since there is no recourse, no higher court or authority to legally appeal to and the will of the people is irrelevant, this may as well be an irrevocable Act of God that we're totally powerless to counter so there's no point in dwelling on it, right?

In my line of work I see the power of eminent domain being used regularly and routinely. If a road needs to be widened to accomodate the increased traffic resulting from a privately owned subdivision then the road will be widened even if that means that the pre-existing homeowners will have to look both ways for oncoming traffic before stepping out from their front door on the way to work in the morning. If the most convenient and cost effective route for a water or sewer line to service this private developement happens to go through your back yard, well, that's where it's going to go. The immediate and actual beneficiary of the land acquisition is almost always a private developer who eventually walks away with his profits. The purported beneficiary, the town, county or state winds up with more roads and utilities to service and maintain which requires more tax revenue and so the cycle perpetuates itself. More tax ratables requiring more government services requiring more tax ratables...

This American Myth that a man's home is his castle has little basis in fact. Many of us occupy a plot of land that we spend twenty or thirty years paying for and yet we're still subject to the whims and humor of the Lord of the Manor, even more so now with this latest ruling. We're already little more than economic serfs. Assuming that you've managed to pay off your mortgage and that you have fee simple possession and title to your property, try this experiment, refuse to pay your property taxes for a quarter or two and see what happens. You'll find out rather quickly who really owns your property.

To echo some of the sentiments already expressed in this thread, maybe this latest blatant slap in the face by a dictatorial judiciary will be enough to convince some of the fence sitters out there that all is not right in the world and that all this talk of "freedom" is little more than smoke and mirrors.

On the spot John Law. It has been a long held opinion of mine that as long as the white race maintain their creature comforts they will let the world fall apart around their feet. It truly is a gilded cage in which we live. Unless we suffer we will do nothing.

Let's go back for a few minutes. Just a little respite. It's ok, we'll come right back to the horrors, but everybody needs just a little daydreaming now and then. Ok? Close your eyes. Remember...remember... remember...Davy Crockett.

_________________________

When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but as I thought, rather coldly.

"I began: 'Well friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates and---

"Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."

"This was a sockdolger...I begged him tell me what was the matter.

"Well Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting you or wounding you.'

"I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.

But an understanding of the constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the honest he is.'

" 'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by fire in Georgetown. Is that true?

"Well my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just the same as I did.'

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.

What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give at all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.'

"'Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have Thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.'

"The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from necessity of giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'

"'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'

"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'

"He laughingly replied; 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'

"If I don't, said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'

"No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. 'This Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.

"'Well I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name."

"'My name is Bunce.'

"'Not Horatio Bunce?'

"'Yes

"'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'

From, "Not Yours To Give"
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennessee